Personal Reflection

Apartheid tells that human rights are still not protected by one’s own government. Also, that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a great idea but is unenforced. This is because Apartheid is an example of a government that was not representative of the people and did not give them equal rights. It’s not until after the fact that people are senselessly killed when other countries take notice and punish the government involved. Finally, Apartheid shows that human rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are still completely ignored by some nations.
Apartheid can be related to the Holocaust because in both events innocent people were mistreated and/or put to death because of their ethnic background. Apartheid was enforced by the white South African government by taking rights away from the blacks. For example, blacks were forced into inadequate housing and only had access to a few doctors to meet their medical needs. The whites acted superior by imprisoning, torturing, and even killing blacks who protested against apartheid. The Holocaust can be related to Apartheid because the Nazis forced Jews and others deemed undesirable, such as gypsies and homosexuals to live in overcrowded ghettos with diseases. However, the Nazis went much further than the South African government by sending millions of Jews to death camps.
Apartheid denied the idea of humanism because black individuals did not matter under this system. In South Africa the blacks had no say in their rights. The rights for blacks to have a standard of living adequate for their health and well-being were taken away by the ruling of the white minority. They were forced to live in shacks with little land and had to carry passbooks that limited where they were allowed to go. Since blacks were considered unimportant, they had poor educational and job opportunities. The concept of humanism was shattered by the South African government’s discrimination against blacks on the basis of skin color. Also, they did not view them as individuals who were equal to whites.
I feel that Apartheid was an unfair system and that all the criminal perpetrators from the leadership of the country to the lowest ranking police officer or soldier should have been punished for taking part in the wrong doings. The victims have my sympathy because by having no rights, they had no say of how to live their own lives. It was unfair that the victims were unable to protect themselves against the well-armed white South Africans. Also, I feel that the South African government was totally wrong for torturing or killing blacks who protested against their rules. I pity the victims of Apartheid because they had to suffer so much during this totally unjustified event.
I believe that the United Nation’s peace keeping efforts in sovereign countries are acceptable because it puts a potentially powerful army right in the backyard of countries that have taken away the rights of their citizens. The United Nations should always try to help any sovereign nation in protecting the rights of the people. Thus, when Apartheid occurred in South Africa, the U.N. should have stepped in to protect the rights of the black people. The U.N. is welcome to step into the sovereignty of the U.S. This would be an interesting situation, since most nation members would probably choose not to join a coalition against the U.S. However, if any wrong doings are made by the U.S., we should correct them to maintain equal rights.

--- Kevin Olints
--- Group - Melissa, Kevin, Bianca